


Kids Say the Darnedest Things

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Family Fluff, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8627353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: Some things, like children wanting things and not understanding finances, are pan-species issues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This occurs in the early 2150s, before humans joined the galactic community; Sparatus (Ierian in this) isn't the councilor yet.

“So then I told _him_ ,” Aediteia trilled, words just barely beginning to slur from alcohol, “I don’t care if your mom’s the Empress, my husband is the _chief ambassador_ , and I fucking have dibs on Council stories.”

Ierian rumbled in sympathy and took a drink from his own bottle of booze. “What’d he say then?”

“Well,” she said, head dropping against his shoulder, “not a whole lot, ’cause then the boss walked up behind him and told him rookies don’t get to cover the Tower, anyway, so leave me alone ’fore I sicced my lawyer- that’s you, ’course- on him.”

He chuckled and rubbed her shoulder, accepting her glass of wine from her and setting it on the side table. “Did he realize I wouldn’t have a case?”

“Dunno. Kid ran off, so probably not.” She let out a dainty little yawn, then curled up closer to his side, rubbing her face against his cowl. “Either way, I don’t think he’ll be bothering me for a while.”

“Good. You know I hate trying to intimidate people.” He squirmed until he could pull his legs up on the couch and stretch out sideways, nestling her between his body and the back of the couch.

“You hate trying to intimidate _turians_ ,” she corrected mildly. “You have no problem doing it to aliens.”

He shrugged and reached for his drink. “They’re afraid of me anyway. It’s not a challenge.”

She hummed and snuggled up against him, closing her eyes. “Dear, turians are afraid of you, too. You’re just insecure because you’re smaller than most of your coworkers, and you let it get to your head.”

He was opening his mouth to retort when a distant sound gave him pause. He closed his mouth and lifted his head, listening, then tried to glance over the back of the couch, to little success. “Did you hear that?”

Aediteia’s subvocals rumbled an affirmative. “Somebody’s out of bed,” she mused, one eye cracking open.

The sound grew closer, now a more distinct, unsteady thudding of tiny feet on carpet. Ierian sat up a little more and looked back, giving his youngest child a critical eye as she approached. “Callie, you’re supposed to be in bed, honey.”

Calvetorin, footed onesie ruffled and uneven from her climb out of bed, hesitated, ducking her head and clutching something in her arms closer to her. She looked at him with saucer-wide eyes for a moment, then cautiously resumed her approach, not daring to break eye contact with him. He allowed her to come closer without further comment, instead simply raising one mandible to let her know she wasn’t in trouble.

Once she’d rounded the corner, Calvetorin hopped up, apparently deciding she wouldn’t be banished back to her bed after all, and scrambled for the couch as fast as her spindly legs would let her. She pushed what she’d been carrying into Ierian’s lap, which he now realized was one of the datapads of toy catalogs Aediteia had brought home from the studio for the children to browse, then put her hands on his knee and tried to hoist herself up.

After watching her struggle for a moment, Aediteia hummed and reached over Ierian’s legs to pick their daughter up by the cowl, lifting her up and depositing her neatly in the corner of the couch by Ierian’s hip. “Hi, sweetie,” she burbled, and Ierian had time to marvel at how miraculous it was that she could remove almost all traces of how tipsy she was when she spoke to nestlings, “what are you doing awake?”

Calvetorin bit one of her talons, looking between her parents like she was waiting for the reprimand. When none came, she pawed at the datapad in Ierian’s lap, then pointed to the toy that flashed up on the screen. “Pari, can you buy me this?”

He raised a brow plate, but picked up the datapad to look at it. The object of his daughter’s desires was a turian-shaped doll, stylized enough to be cutesy and appealing to children, but realistic enough that he was pretty sure the damn thing’s eyes would follow him late at night. The ad boasted that dolls could be customized to the buyer’s specifications, everything from eye and plate color down to simplified markings and what color sealant went on the talons.

Ten thousand credits.

He practically choked on his tongue, while Aediteia let out a startled trill. He coughed for a bit, then shook his head. “No, Callie,” he said, and he felt a sharp tug of guilt on his heartstrings as her expectant face fell. “That’s too expensive. We can’t afford it.”

Well, they _could_ , but that was _far_ too much to spend on a doll. The money was much better spent on food, or rent, or _anything else_.

Calvetorin sniffed. Oh, no, not the sniffles. She rubbed her face against his side, then asked, “Can you take out a loan?”

His brain shorted out momentarily, and was brought back by Aediteia snorting and hiding her face in the couch. He shook his head to clear it, then hugged Calvetorin. “Now, who told you about loans, hm?”

She rubbed at her nose. “Mari.”

Aediteia went still, then giggled and brought her head back up. “I was practicing a script in the mirror, and loans came up,” she explained, “and Callie was helping me pick an outfit for the next day, and she asked what a loan is.”

He nodded in understanding, then leaned down to bump his frontal plate against the baby’s. “No, Callie, we can’t take out a loan for a doll, that’s not how it works.”

Calvetorin whined, mandibles drooping, and he added quickly, “But I’ll tell you what, I know some people at work, I’ll ask around and see if anybody knows anything better, okay?”

She fidgeted, considering, and he continued, “And we’ll have your favorite for dinner tomorrow.”

She smiled then, and hooked her little talons onto his cowl to haul herself up and bonk her head against his. “Okay, Pari,” she squeaked, before hugging him around the neck. “Love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetie. Go back to bed.”

She trilled, then clambered down from the couch and toddled off. They watched her go, then Aediteia puffed out a little, “ _Spirits_ ,” with exasperated subvocals.

“What?” he asked, nudging her with his shoulder.

“You are _such_ a sucker.” She rolled her eyes.

He snorted. “Oh, like you don’t do the same thing when she’s starting to cry.”

She paused, then sniffed. “Well, I don’t cave _right away…”_

“Really? Then what about that time she ‘helped’ with grocery shopping and ended up picking out twenty different kinds of dessert?”

“She was making _the face_ , I couldn’t help it…”

**Author's Note:**

> in thermodynamics my professor told us a story about his 5-year-old daughter doing this exact thing and i had to


End file.
